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3 <br />Commissioner Crowther asked about the 1~ funding projected -- the <br />relationship between the amount of funds needed for school capital and <br />how much impact fees were adding to that. Rod Visser, Assistant County <br />Manager, said the amount is about $400,000 per year for each school <br />system. John Link said that $1.2 million is what has been brought in <br />from impact fees for the CIP. In the last eight years, Orange County <br />has invested $108,000,000 in new capital construction, so impact fees <br />represent approximately 1$ of total funding. <br />Commissioner Crowther asked what the projected rate of increase <br />would be with the change in the impact fee from $750 to $1500. <br />Chair Carey asked Collins if he feels that the 0.31 student <br />generation rate for the County schools would be sufficient to justify <br />the $750.00 for the County system. Collins said that the amount of the <br />impact fees were lower than the current maximum that could be charged, <br />but it would not be below $'750. <br />Commissioner Willhoit made reference to the graph on page 10 which <br />shows the average number of bedrooms versus the number of kids. He <br />noted that the top graph of Appendix A has the same label but is <br />different. Marvin Collins said that the graph in the Appendix is the <br />Orange County District and all the graphs in the text are for the <br />Chapel Hill/Carrboro School District. Commissioner Willhoit said that <br />if he were going to graph this, he would graph the number of bedrooms <br />versus the average number of kids. Commissioner Willhoit said it looks <br />like a pretty strong correlation but not much spread in the number of <br />bedrooms. He asked for a graph turned around the other way. Collins <br />said they could do it. <br />Marvin Collins said that the spread is what the interns focused on <br />and even though there may seem to be some relationship because it is <br />going up, the spread is so narrow. Ted Abernathy explained that the <br />spread is between 3.5 and 4.1 bedrooms. If the graph were to start at <br />zero, the spread would be different, e.g., the line would appear <br />flatter. <br />John Link asked the Board of County Commissioners about the next <br />steps to pursue. One step is to reexamine the formula by which they <br />apply the fee. He feels that one important element needed before <br />formulating any division of fees is the outcome of the Committee that <br />is working on school construction standards. Collins agreed and said <br />that part of the information used in the calculation of the impact fee <br />is information about school standards. So far, minimum standards of <br />the DPI have been used. Comparing DPI standards with the schools built <br />recently shows that the new schools in Orange County are much higher in <br />the number of square feet per student. A missing element is that there <br />has been no adoption of or consensus reached on school construction <br />standards. If the Committee can come to terms on that issue, then the <br />construction standards can be factored into the technical report so all <br />pieces of the puzzle are there. The student generation rates, school <br />construction standards and cost per square foot can all be included in <br />the calculations of the impact fee. <br />